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In today’s Cloud Wars Minute, I discuss the diverging approaches to cybersecurity between Microsoft and Google Cloud, as Google’s proactive investments have set them apart, while Microsoft’s reactive stance has led to mounting challenges.
Highlights
00:14 — No issue today for CEOs, boards of directors, CIOs, and CTOs is more important than cybersecurity, and it’s interesting to watch the diverging fortunes of two of the leaders of the Cloud Wars Top 10. We could make the case that for the last several years, Microsoft has snoozed through the whole cybersecurity crisis. Meanwhile, Google Cloud invested billions in it.
01:03 — Now, for Satya Nadella, the superb CEO of Microsoft, I think security has been his one big blind spot for the past few years. On its quarterly earnings calls, Nadella will talk about how big their security business is, never saying anything about the very regular, highly damaging security flaws that Microsoft and its customers were experiencing.
02:19 — In contrast, we’ve seen that Thomas Kurian, the CEO at Google Cloud, almost three years ago announced Google Cloud’s intention to buy Mandiant and its threat intelligence services and technology for $5.4 billion. Now, Mandiant has been absorbed into a larger cybersecurity business within Google. It’s a very, very different approach here.
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03:53 — Look at the growth trajectory here. This is where I believe this divergence is really coming home to roost. Last five quarters growth rates for Microsoft: 24%, 20%, 22%, 21%, 22%; for a company that size, that’s a phenomenal growth rate. But look at the numbers for that same period at Google Cloud—22%, 25%%, 27, 28%, 35%. Now, maybe this is just a statistical oddity.
04:51 — For way too long, Microsoft ignored this. Now, of course, in May — six months ago —both Nadella and the head of its security business, Charlie Bell, issued public comments: “Oh, we’re going to change everything top to bottom.”
05:07 — Things were so bad with its entire security business, it had to change everything, right in the hopes that it’ll be able to make up this lost ground come from having an awful set of security capabilities, policies, and technologies, and trying to get back to level ground. I think the investments that Kurian and Google Cloud made a few years ago are paying off handsomely now.
